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Sunday, November 16, 2014

As I get older the less time I have, so I've decided after 26 months to shoot this hog in the head. A special thanks to my partner, Michy McDannold. Also to all the folks around the world that have shared a little piece of theirselves. A goodbye to my old dead gal pal, Patricia Hickerson, she was a real hoot. If all goes according to plan, Michy will archive Ppigpenn on Literary Underground. Mil gracias, Catfish

James
Babbs continues to live and write from the same small Illinois town where he
grew up. He has published hundreds of poems over the past thirty years
and, recently, a few short stories.
James is the author of Disturbing The Light(2013) & The
Weight of Invisible Things(2013).

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Stephen
James from Manchester, UK is trying his
best to survive in one of the United Kingdom's biggest cultural and capitalist
hives on nothing more than art, the kindness of others and organisations that
will pay him in food. www.folknwords.tumblr.com.

I want to make really destructive art. It looks
immensely satisfying. I want to smash plates, throw balloons filled with paint
against walls and rip other people’s work to shreds on stage and call the
destruction artwork of my own. Too many other people get away with it, so why
can’t I?

Making art, destructive or not, seems like the best
way to get yourself across to all these people. It could be your pain or it
could be your tremendous sense of self-worth; they seem to be what sells.
Although I bet at least once a very nice, well-rounded chap has painted
something and some so-called art expert, an interesting idea in itself, has
assigned pain, or a tremendous sense of self-worth, which was more than likely
their own, to it and the creator has been hailed as a genius. What is
outsider art really? Surely self-expression is one of the few areas in which
everybody is on a totally level playing field, for nobody has any more self
than anybody else. Right?

I just want to make really destructive art. Why
does writing have to be such a long and drawn out process? Is that just what
kind of person I am? The kind of person who by all rationale should explode for
all to see but refuses, instead choosing to break down every aspect of his
madness into words; everything that will and was and could and should and would
have been said and then putting them down on paper; a million witty reposts to
a thousand things that were said in the heat of a moment now cold just so that
everybody who never reads my words will understand the personal magnitude of a
situation that nobody even paid any attention to at the time.

Destructive art would be so much easier. I put down
my words on paper, read them, re-read them and then deem then unworthy, not
good enough. My words are then lifted, rearranged and rewritten until they are
maybe, just maybe, better than they were to start off with. The unworthy words
are then destroyed, pulped, recycled. It is destruction but it is not art. I
hope that my recycled pages are used to make something of use.

At least if I make destructive art then people
won’t have a choice but to see. Because that’s the peculiar thing about art: if
it’s big enough, then people can’t help but know it. I’ve never read Hamlet,
Catcher in the Rye or any of the novels by Ian ‘boring-as-shit’ McEwan but I,
along with just about everybody else in the world, can picture the Mona Lisa,
Van Gough’s sunflowers and that stupid skull covered in diamonds by simply
closing my eyes. I want to make really destructive art. I want to enjoy it. I
want everybody to hear about it.

I want to make really destructive art. One shot,
one chance, no drafts and definitely no rewrites. Once something has been
destroyed it cannot be undone. You blink and you miss it. Art and then some
more art and then some more and all you’re left with is a strange feeling in
your gut and a mess left for somebody else to clean.

I’m going to make really destructive art. I say
this now but I never follow through with any of my outrageous claims. I’m
surprised these words have made it this far, spreading across the page,
floating through the air, trying to work their way inside your head. But I have
to; there is no point in expressing your loves, your hates, your fears and all
of the other bullshit like this, even if it is in perfectly formed, or indeed
beautifully fragmented sentences, broken utterances; stuttered or yelled. The
prose can flowery and flow but nobody will ever know what you mean;
it doesn't mean anything to anybody without your pitiful
existence as a frame of reference. A frame of reference that is held by nobody
but you- you arrogant, selfish bastard.

I should make really destructive art. I think that
it would make me feel better.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

From the safety of his
boring suburban New Hampshire condo, Ag Synclair publishes The Montucky
Review and edits poetry for The Bookends Review. Widely
published in the small presses, he manages to fly under the radar. Deftly.

awake, late

knawing through a
chewable darkness

you thank someone for
the rain

for the procreation of a
few lousy words
for fractions of time in which you imagine

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Paul has been described
as a bounder, cur and eternal wretch but after therapy his Mother is now
excepting his long distance calls.

After a youthhood
bringing life into the world and watching it extinguished on small holdings he left
the incubator cocoon of Norfolk, England like a roaring James Dean figure, or
bashful Kerouac anti-hero hunting for the meaning of life by scratching the
worlds underbelly. He found one night stands, plants and booze then denounced
love as a concept. He also read whatever lay on the table in front of him until
he figured he would write something… paulcromptonpoetry.blogspot.co.uk

Visions of Ginsberg. An excerpt

A homage to beat writing inspired by nonchalant sex, idle chemical
romances and boozed up house parties (otherwise known as university)

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed
by education,
half starved on beans and booze rations,
who passed through universities with LDN dreams,
and their dad’s Amex’s
hallucinating working class veneers,
wearing down trodden connotations.
Expelled from the college blocks and uni’s
by the scholars of war and Marx,
in their crazed cotton shirts and up-turned eyes
installing obscene odes on the windows of the skull.
I saw the truth of the night
light up the small town secrets,
explode the dreams of teenage years
as the moon shone rays of ghost blue
cloaked in radical new signs,
of life hidden beneath the high street and mortgage brokers.
Scrambled remains of Spiders cover the lofts of pigeons breasts
writing obscene notes and obscure letters
twelve feet high across the hearts of their friends.

I saw them escaping their mothers with hard drugs;
their fathers with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock.
Whole intellects discarded
in total abandon to Sambuca and bong rounds.
Bone-grindings and migraines of China
under poison withdrawal.
In the austere foul-mouths of bleak student rooms,
A silent reminder of a monochrome Dylan, hung
framed with coloured muslin, saris and silver wall-hangings filtering light
from tea.
Floor’s and walls cracked deep with polished sheen
where the light bounced and sparked alight the colours
picking out the sequins on the Indian beading
which hung like stoned eyelids from floor to ceiling,
blocking the paths and parked cars from interior ideas of separatism
by those who howled on their knees on their way from remedies and were
dragged from the roofs by day-glo cops
Who stopped them from waving their genitals and essay scripts.

It's Easy To Be Lonely

It's easy to be lonely,
spend solitary months
speaking only to buy beer
hid in busy pubs,
watch receding tide line
of cheap porter fall
in unison with the sun,
and later coke black rum.

Silent for whole days
walking without destination,
waste empty afternoons
filling time in dark cinemas
draining contraband cans
like playing field teen.

Finding old broken bench
from where to watch
churning eternal water
swell and fall away.
To feel the ebb and flow of life
wash through poisoned veins.

Sat next to a stranger
with daydreams contained
in blue curve of jean thigh,
rose lips;
but no words seem sensible
making hello redundant
so we watch the day tick by,
quiet in each other’s company
because it easier to stay lonely.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

In the house I grew up in the encyclopedia
volumes were shelved in my room. I would read them from A to Z back and forth.
I remember being enchanted by beautiful sentences, well constructed and
balanced, but also sentences that say something meaningful, something
revelatory.

As a teenager I started exploring
writing as a way of yearning for something to feed fantasies in a world where
everyone said things dryly.

Do
you have a specific writing style?

I think there is something very
permanent about the written word and for some reason the piece I am working on
always has to have the ability to stand as the last thing I ever wrote.

Do
you write as a career?

No and I wouldn’t want to. The
sitting is killing me so everything else I do for a living is in motion.

Do
you write full-time?

Writing is a way of being for me
and I jot down notes daily but I am not anymore setting a schedule of hours to
write. I found that when I did, I would sometime stare at the blank page for
days and nothing would come to my mind. Then I would take a jog along the
Hudson river and see so many artists practice tap dance, reading lines of
scenes, stretching to their yoga asana or warming their voice, or I would walk
in a very early hour through Times Square and watch tourists taking endless
photos without really looking around them – all these make me return to my
notebook with plethora of ideas.

What
do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment as a writer?

Completing five full-length
screenplays I am madly passionate about, through which I feel I managed to squeeze
the essence out of life and I have a strong feeling they have the potential to
get under the viewers’ skin.

Staying sane.

What
is your ultimate goal as a writer?

Not to get published through the
conventional publishing machine. I am not built for that kind of commitment,
book tours, nonsensical interviews and temporary unjustified inflated
attention.

Ultimately I wish to get back to
my notebook and keep on writing. Also, I imagine that it is probably nice to
get published, but that’s all it is – nice.

I do very much wish to see my
screenplays performed on the big screen and have someone somewhere sitting in
their home, reading a poem of mine and nodding their head ‘yes.’

What
is your greatest challenge as a writer?

Not knowing all the words in the
English language. I moved to NYC four and a half years ago and though I had
what is considered a good English, it is not as rich as my native language.
Ever since I am here I read, talk and write only in English and though I
acknowledge the fact that my vocabulary has improved, still each day when I get
my daily Wordsmith newsletter and find another word I did not know, I wonder
when will I know them all.

What
projects of yours have been recently published?

Other than publishing my work on
my blog, a poem and an essay of mine will be published in the coming issue of And Then magazine.

What
are you currently working on and what inspired this work?

I am writing a series of comedy
sketches for TV as well as revising poems, short films and full-length
screenplays for submissions.

The comedy sketches came about
after collecting countless notebooks with funny sketches from all types of
situations I see around me over the past years. When you are a writer, you are
constantly in search for stories. You read them, you eavesdrop to them, you
take close looks. I notice things throughout my day; moments supply me with
ideas and notes to develop about the human condition.

Also, I just love the idea that I
can write a script and after it is been shot it become more than what I wrote.
More than what I put there.

Where
can we find your work?

I publish some of my poems and
short stories on my blog at Who Seeks
Finds.

How often do you write?

Every single day. I never leave
the house without a notebook, a pen and a book in my pocketbook.

How
do you react to rejections?

I do a couple of push-ups or a
downward dog. These give a new point-of-view.

How
do you react when one of your submissions is accepted for publication?

I first sit up more straight
filled with content. Then I start doubting the seriousness of the publication.

What
is your best piece of advice on how to stay sane as a writer?

Always do something physical.

Make sure that when you are ready
to lift your head from your notebook, that there will be someone there at the
end of the day. The time you will reminisce on will be time spent with friends
and family, not that time when you were by yourself and you nailed that
sentence. Lastly, something I know to be true: to do something well means to do
it a lot.

What
is your favorite book?

There’s always a new favorite.
This is why these type of questions are so unfair to everyone I may forget to
mention.

If
you could have dinner with one fictional character, who would it be and why?

Beowulf. Just for the chance to
hear him talk in Old English.

What
is the greatest occupational hazard for a writer?

Too long of a solitude. Getting
paralyzed over perfection. And too much sitting.

What
is your favorite word?

UNBECOMING. Also FAMISHED and
ENCHANTED and PECULIAR. They all roll so beautifully in one’s mouth.

What
makes you laugh?

Animation movies, and cats.

What
makes you cry?

I cry terribly easy, over
everything. Over fanatics. Over injustice. Over enslavement of another human
being or an animal. Over seeing someone walking a dog and pulling him
impatiently while he tries to do his thing.

Anything you’d like
to share about your country, its people, or native animals?

These things I know to
be true about New York City:

1. When you live in a city where people are living
as if nobody is watching, you see ugly things.
2. There is not a night of the week when you can't attend a reading in
Brooklyn, or several.
3. NYC apartments are the most destructive, humiliating and depressive human
compartments; they reinforce a collective faith that keeps nourishing its
writers.
4. People love-to-love New York, but mostly they love-to-hate it. Still some
will never let it go. Maybe they have a difficulty giving away the possibility
to attend Paul Holdengraber meeting Jay-Z at the NYPL Events, or seeing Lena
Dunham and Zadie Smith at the BAM or taking a selfie with Al Pacino after his
play on Broadway or running to Sarah Jessica Parker in a coffee place in Little
Italy or exchanging a laugh with Alec Baldwin at Nanoosh restaurant or even
just walking past West 27th Street knowing this is where one of your
most appreciated literary magazines is now sorting the recent submissions.
5. You can easily bump into someone famous simply because they live here.
6. Very rarely will bumping into someone
famous change your life or affect your career.

The reason for that is because the residents of New
York who will bump into those famous individuals and actually expect that this
will change their lives will most likely steal a snapshot with their phone and
be busy in the next ten minutes sharing it on their social media platforms
along with a caption that necessarily includes some version of the phrase
‘OMG!’ and by the time they finished looking at the first Likes and comments on
all their social media platforms, they will look up and notice that famous
individual had long gone and they missed yet another opportunity to live the
moment.

7. People come with the notion that New York will be
the Hawaii of the mind but the main thing the two have in common is coconut
water on every second corner.

8. If you are a writer in
New York, you are just another word between parentheses.

9. The world that was experienced by writers who
lived in New York pre-Internet days was written so well because it was truly
experienced rather than Googled.

10. The wonderful thing about living in New York is
that there is a ton of talent, experience, broken hearts and starving stomachs
waiting to get another gig, and this talent combined with disrupts passions and
real hunger always creates something truly phenomenal and poignant.

11. The majority of New
York Nine-to-Five workers are living in a TGIF state of mind. I find that
terribly sad.

12. The art galleries
talks scene in New York is like listening to Slavoj Zizek. No one knows what he
is talking about and it’s all over the place.

13. In New York everything
is misleading without necessarily be false.

14. I would sometimes spend days without saying one
word aloud. I found that many New Yorkers are like me.

15. In New York you learn the secret of a great
pizza: Its greatness is based on the
moments and people spent having it with.

QUESTIONS: Please
answer in 5 words or less:

1. Where do you
live, city & country or state?

New
York, NY, United States of America.

2. If you had to live in any country besides
yours, what would be your favorite & least favorite, in that order?

Canada
or South Africa would be my favorites. China would be the least.

3. If you were
stranded naked on a deserted island & were allowed one thing, what would it
be? (No transportation allowed)

A
company.

4. If you could only choose one book as your
favorite, what would it be?

Collected
Poems by Ron
Padgett (Coffee House Press, 2013).

5. If you could
have a conversation with anyone, dead & alive, who would it be, in that
order?

Rumi
and David Foster Wallace.

6. What is your
favorite movie & television show, in that order?

Sling
Blade. The
Sopranos, and anything with Matthew McConaughey.

7. If you found a
magic lamp & got three wishes, what would they be?

Free
all caged animals, find the song that will make all torturers stop torturing,
make everything else right.